Reverie and That Song She Sings
by dosei no otohime
Summary: Simple plot: Faye and her thoughts during the night. FxS. NOT a songfic. PART SIX REVISED!
1. Part 1: Atoms

It was dark in the room. I remained barefoot and in my nightgown. The air was crisp and cool, but not chilling. The ship was shut down mostly, except for that constant bass vibration that you got used to after only a few days. Sometimes it was a lullaby. Sometimes an annoyance, but that was only after you chased what you couldn't catch.

__

But I never could catch you, could I?

The shadows were most present in the corners and bent the room into some horrible octagon. Strange how the darkness took to corners, like some kind of random but consistent void of darkness. Across from me, I could see him, just barely, grey and blue tints reflecting back. He was lying there again. His eyes were closed, simply because he was sleeping. His outline breathed deep for the life that was in this air. 

__

What is it that you dream about, night after night, Spike Spiegel?

I pulled out a cigarette from a pack I kept secretly in this chair. It used to be hidden out of the caution that my then captors might steal my smokes. I lit it up, the strike of the lighter echoing around the room. I drew in the smoke, embers lighting up the darkness with a bright orange glow, and then pulled the paper tube from my lips. He sat still in the darkness, his breath the only noise he emitted. I wanted to _become_ that air he needed so much.

__

I love you…why are you leaving us… me… again?

Because he loved her, because he hated him… that's why. I wanted to cry out like some tiny child, demanding a rational answer to everything and the story of his life, a thing I would never hear the fable of. This was something he never shared with me. His past. 

__

Spike could dwell on the past forever, couldn't he? 

I sighed, smoke coming out in wispy tendrils from behind my lips.

__

Don't kid yourself, girl… you would want every chance to even get your hands on a past. Heck, you'd take his… even though it was Hell.

I watched his chest move under that well-worn yellow shirt and loose tie. It glided smoothly under the fabric. His breathing made the room almost warm…

__

You'd gamble with the devil himself in exchange for some memory of your own to grasp, to hold… but what would you do to get him?

I stared into the abyss…

__

He's saved your life, you owe him this hour without disturbance. Huh, but you owe everybody, so what makes Spike so special?

… and the abyss stared into me_…_

How long have you danced around him while all he's done is stood still? 

It was clear what I needed to do, what my soul was tearing my mind up over. I stood up, putting the cigarette out in a nearby ashtray. 

__

What are you doing, Faye?

I took a few steps forward, finding some sixth sense and managing not to bump my shins on the coffeetable_._

This fish isn't hungry, Faye. It won't bite the hook, it won't take the bait. Don't ruin it now, Faye. 

I stood beside him, staring down. His dreaming eyes danced under their lids. When he's awake, he never really sees you with those eyes. His breath kept coming, slow and steady. 

__

Don't.

Then I leaned in, closing my eyes, finding his lips with mine. And I kissed him. It was gentle, barely there, surreal in every atom and molecule folded within its wings and burdens.

__

What are you doing Faye?

And I pulled away.

__

What are you doing Faye?

What are you doing Faye?

"What are you doing Faye?" his voice rose up above the darkness. His eyes were now open, those enigmatic eyes had opened. His breath was now caught, captured and saved for the next sentence. He waited for my answer, but there came none. 

"Was I snoring _that_ loud?"

__

He was awake this whole time, wasn't he Faye?

He probably had been. He'd heard me, seen me, felt me. The serene moment was over, or had it been never existing? 

I smiled, a little laugh escaping me. "Yes, Spike. You sounded awful. I wish you'd keep your damn mouth shut while others are trying to sleep," I said and started towards my own room. But I stopped at the doorway out, halfway between a dancing dream and a tumbling reality.

"Hey Spike?"

He was sitting up now, as I turned to face him. His eyes, those dreaming eyes, were directed my way. He was adjusting twisted pant legs and socks.

"Yeah Faye?"

__

I love you, I want you. We can leave, Spike, forever and ever. We can never look back, Spike. Leave with me, leave with me…

"Nevermind…" 

And then I left the room, and the mirage man, behind me… another bitter medicinal concoction that Fate and Destiny had forced me to swallow.

__

What are you doing Faye?

What are you doing Faye?

I would like everyone to know that I don't own Cowboy Bebop. I may continue this, but only if the readers would be pleased by this action. If you are going to review, tell me your opinion of a continuation in your review. Thank you for reading this.


	2. Part 2: Find A Broken Halo

****

Reverie and That Song She Sings

Part 2

-

Find A Broken Halo

I closed the door to my room, not bothering to switch on the light to see where I was placing my feet. Then my calves felt the softness of blankets and I knew I had found where I needed to go. I let myself fall to my bed. I sat there for a minute on the chilled mattress before stretching out, my nightgown sliding silkily across my thighs. I lay still, except for breathing, idly staring into the shadows of my room, not even caring that my eyes caught no color other than black.

__

Black… the mood rings always say that stands for excitement. Yeah, right.

I reached up to my face and felt my cheek with the back of my hand. My thoughts were confirmed as I felt the layer of heat burn up to my cooler flesh. Thank God it had been dark in that room, otherwise Spike would've seen me blush. Then he'd tease me for months on end. 

__

Your so stupid, Faye…

I winced at the fresh memory as it took freefall through my brain and into my heart. It gave a violent shove on my entire system. I clenched my fists until the bitterness began to ebb. 

__

Stupid for kissing him and then letting him go…

But had he been awake to know what I had done? It now felt sinful, and I felt nearly dirty. I was guilty for opening my heart in the darkness to him. I had killed everything with one action. Now we'll both walk like awkward puppets around each other, try to find new words for this new meaning. 

__

This fish wasn't hungry, or its just plain dumb.

I stretched the muscles in my thighs restlessly. They ached for movement in the aftermath of a kiss. I writhed upon the covers to soothe their want to move, but nothing could beat a good walk. Finally, I stood up from my heated mattress and jumbled sheets to walk out to the lobby again. It was still dark, but I could tell that Spike had gotten up for his room so not to be bothered by anybody else or he had gone to take a shower.

__

I'll bet you'd love to "accidentally" walk in…

The idea seemed enticing, and nearly funny. But I shook away these thoughts and quietly made my way across the room. I slipped by the bathroom, and cautiously put my ear to the door, straining to hear anything that would show he was there. All I heard was the small hum of the water heater.

__

Where is he?

I began to tiptoe around the ship, which was totally useless, since he was probably going to find me before I found him. 

__

Damnit, where is he?

Not in the hangar.

Not in his room.

I bit my lip. Secret worry about him crept up from somewhere hidden deep.

__

Don't you dare feel lost without him…you're stronger than that.

I turned a corner and nearly gasped out of fright. There he was, his figure a tall shadow against space. He was staring out the window at whatever was out there. 

"Need something?"

His voice slid across the air, breaking it and all its darkness. My lips fumbled for a response. For the second time, he had caught me off guard.

__

No, don't talk to me. Go back to watching the stars… back to being beautiful…

"No… I… nothing…"

__

Oh, geez, how lame did you sound right there, missy?

He turned around to face me. His eyes shimmered with must have been all the light in the room. He just kinda looked at me. I could see his eyes shift and look me over from heel to head. I began to feel vulnerable in my revealing nightgown.

"You sure?"

Can this guy read minds or something?! I could feel my neck start to heat up as the blood began its little dance in my cheeks. 

__

Damnit, stop blushing, idiot!

I didn't say anything else. I averted my gaze and then kept my eyes on the ground.

"Ya know," he said, "I don't appreciate having makeup put on me while I sleep…"

My mouth nearly fell open, but only my eyes managed to respond to the shock by widening. Spike didn't seem to notice this, and I was relieved. So he _had_ been asleep! The only evidence that anything had happened was a smear of deep red on his lips.

"Revenge is sweet, though," I said with a grin and a lie. He raised an eyebrow.

"Revenge for what?"

"Making Ein go romping about in my clothes, turning off the hot water for a week, stealing my smokes…"

"Oh."

He pulled something from his pocket, then I heard the quick sound of the lighter, then saw the red-orange glow as it lit up his features. His hair was a mess again, more than it usually was, but that was what made me look. The shadows bounced into the hollow between jaw and cheekbone for the one moment that the small flame was kept alive. He looked up at me with a curious look spread across his face.

I then realized that I was staring again. I turned my head. He saw this too.

__

Love only gets you in trouble, Faye.

And Spike Spiegel is a barrel full of it.

Silence wove its fingers around us once more. Then he shifted in his spot to lean against the glass, leaving me to stare at the place where he once stood, to look past it as well to see the eternity of stars.

__

Stupid Spike. It's all his fault anyway.

All his fault for having amazing eyes, all his fault for having the strangest hair. It was his fault that he was so serious, but so idiotic at times. It was his fault for being an arrogant lunkhead. His fault for being so damn brave. His fault that he didn't turn you in for bounty cash a long time ago.

__

All his fault for being one of the kindest men you've ever known.

Yeah… 

"Spike…"

"Yeah?"

Again my brain felt suddenly jumbled up with every other part of my body.

"Spike… I…"

"Yeah…"

I looked up at him. Jesus, he was beautiful against the stars. He was paying attention now. His eyes were set on me, and me only. Maybe, within this moment, nothing else existed to either of us.

__

Yeah, nice fantasy.

"Spike, I L… L…"

"What?"

No more nonchalant "yeah" came down from his mouth. No more arrogance, no longer stupid. He may have known which path I had started taking with my words.

"I l… I lied."

My abrupt curve caused silence. This blurt made the air suddenly thick. He raised an eyebrow at me.

"What are you talking about?"

I turned my eyes down. There was no way I could look into his face now. 

__

What are you doing Faye?

What are you doing Faye?

What are you doing Faye?

__

I found a broken halo this morning…

Does it happen to belong to you?

You claim, but that cannot be true

For I can hear it as she sings

Reverie, reverie

The broken halo belongs… 

To me…

The mini-poem is mine.

So what do you think of this small continuation? I will probably add more later, but tell me what you think now.


	3. Part 3: When Midnight Comes Around

****

Reverie and That Song She Sings

Part 3

-

When Midnight Comes Around

I kept my stare clinging to the floor in my own private twisting of bantam hells. Maybe I was susceptible to this feeling around him. It felt as if a petite fairy had broken free of its icy coffin to dance and flutter about inside. She wouldn't care that the cold splinters bore into the balls of her feet, or that her blood smeared the floor as she waltzed and twisted around in her dance. She was alive, and knew that her body thrived with such things, and for that she danced.

__

I want to dance as well.

"Well?"

His voice pulled me back to that place abruptly. I pressed the insides of my lips together as my mind quickly tried to correct the jump still leftover in my skin. Pressed for the length of my silence, I simply blurted.

"I lied. You don't snore."

I watched his shoes for another shift in posture. It came as it would when he relaxed against the wall even more than he had been a moment earlier to that. His soft exhale of breath made me realize what air I held in my own chest. I let it out slowly; my inhaling was sharper and carried more of its quick sound with a rugged pattern.

"I don't, huh?" he blew out smoke, " I should've known, otherwise our friendly Mr. Black would've spaced my ass a long time ago," he said with the beginnings of a sly smile. I cracked my own grin. Then we both laughed at his casual words. Chuckles fell from us like eager candy from pockets this time.

We regained our composure with a single look from the both of us. We were both smiling, and this is where I hid the butterflies that flittered about and nipped at the insides. "Jet's too sentimental to do that to you. You guys get along like brothers," I said, a tiny snip of envy forming, but not resting behind my words. I wish Spike would get so close to me sometimes that we would have inside jokes like he and Jet had.

__

Be closer than brothers are…

"Brothers? Right…"

He was obviously pointing out the fact that they had squabbles or that Spike acted outrageous, or stupid, or even both, while Jet always tried to think everything out. I raised an eyebrow slightly. "Hey, I didn't say that brothers never fight," I retaliated with a gritty tone mixed into every syllable.

"True."

He puffed on his cigarette some more, slender fingers pinching it somewhere between the glowing embers and his lips. They seemed to curve carefully around it and hold it with just the right pressure between the two that held the smoke.

__

It looks like you've painted your whole life with those hands…

Suddenly, a loud metal clang echoed down the halls, as well as a deep-throated guttural cry of pain, that quickly caught a pair of attentions.

"I guess Jet's awake," he said, still casting an amused glance at where the sound had come. I snorted.

"Are you so sure he's awake?"

Spike glanced at me, then back down the steel corridor. "Well, maybe after that pan dropped on his foot. Besides," his mouth slid up into a sarcastic smile, "he can't fix his magically delicious bellpeppers and beef—without the beef—while he's asleep," he said. I grunted. "His food usually tastes like he made it while he was asleep."

"Yeah, I know."

After barely a moment, he pushed away from the wall and turned from me and started off.

__

Wait! Where are you going?

My mind cried this with the contempt of a spoiled child. 

He stopped in mid-step. My heart jumped.

"Gotta make sure Jet doesn't set the place on fire," he said, still facing forward. Then he began his walk once more, leaving me to stand there like a simple heart, and to turn from this place when my mind fell off course. 

I went back to my room.

__

Back to my sanctuary.

I took out the headband and lay it on the dresser. I caught the eyes staring back at me, my twenty-three year old eyes. More guilt bubbled up from inside my chest to deposit itself deep in my ribs.

__

I should've died on that day.

Should've died so long ago…

I took up the brush and ran it through my hair, against the palm of my hand holding the locks up and away from my neck. I closed my eyes to take a small amount of pleasure in being alone for the first time in a few hours. Alone and quiet.

The quiet seemed to slip around my waist like lover's arms, soft to take comfort in. I could barely feel the ghost of Whitney's warmth fold around me. It was an old instinct still held, but I didn't like it here. It hadn't felt right since I pulled the bottle of lies from beneath the sand to read the list inside. 

__

Damn men… always lie to you. No good for you in any way or form…

I shook my head. I needed new thoughts. Something better so I could ride the path that the serenity had shone me towards.

However, something jarred me back to the placement of reality with a sharp breath in. I snapped my eyes open and turned quickly to the door, the click of the tumblers what had caught my ears.

"Just me," he said with the slightest evidence. He shut the door behind him, everything clicking into place as it did. Then he stepped away from the door. "What are you doing in here?" I asked, the tiniest touch of aggravation sliding off my tongue. He ignored my tone.

He didn't answer me, either, as he cast a glance at my unmade bed before slumping down on the muffed mattress. It was only then that he shrugged. "To talk I suppose," he said, quite ill normally. I accepted his answer, with only a curious look from my behalf, and went back to brushing my hair. This time I was watching him through the mirror. 

He just rather sat there, eyes resting on the soles of his weathered boots. 

I spoke first.

"So what is the stuff that Jet's about to serve up?" I asked. He looked in my direction with an amused expression. "He told me it was fried noodles with broccoli and peppers, but I probably couldn't tell the difference between his cooking and bird shit on rye," he said. I snickered, trying to steady the brush as I both laughed and attempted even strokes.

That's when I caught him.

He was watching me through the mirror. I saw him, he saw me. This vision lock proved to be as incriminating as gloves and knives between us. I could feel the red as it reared its bright head through my cheeks. This embarrassing drive had the feel of downing a dozen candies at once, as well as the quickened heart and the caught lungs. While we were frozen in our captures, I realized it.

__

He isn't dreaming.

No, those eyes hadn't wandered off into an entanglement of memories. He hadn't roused out his grey past in order to look at me through the mirror. He was here. He was now.

He stood and took small steps towards me, never taking his eyes from the reflection of mine. I realized that I had stopped brushing my hair, not that I minded it too much though.

He stood behind me, barely a few inches away. I could feel the heat from him fold across the bare skin of my back. He shifted his weight onto one foot.

I dropped the hairbrush.

A loud clang sounded its cry on the steel floor. It echoed back from the corners near my bed and beneath our feet.

For eternity, neither of us moved. We just looked at each other's reflection in my mirror. 

Then he bent down to scoop up the fallen brush. I held out my hand to receive it, but all he did was ignore my open palm. He pulled it up and took it down, separating my hair gently. Then he repeated his motions to brush through the rest of my hair. The motion was so soft, so gentle. I felt it inside a closed memory, then lost it again in the whirlpool. I closed my eyes and let him run the brush down it.

Then, abruptly, he ceased to stroke it down, and I opened my eyes to meet his again. We matched and met our faces, but expressions were not the same. They didn't reflect each other. 

__

I don't care… He's not dreaming. 

He sees me. That's all I care about.

Jesus, I'm selfish.

His arms folded down and around the phantom limbs of Whitney, overwriting them and creating a new path in the old erase. He moved his hands up, up and through a sheen of plum. His fingers ran tenderly along my scalp. Through this, he continued to look directly into my eyes, as if the windows of my soul were a theater show, and he might miss something if he looked away. Then he cupped my chin in his palm and slowly turned my face towards his.

And he kissed me.

It wasn't as thrilling as the one I had given while he slept. It was more so. My body beamed with a light that must've been borne of heaven. His other hand made a slow journey to support me from the small of my back. He pulled me to him, as if he was letting me in on the secret of his heartbeat. It pulsed up and through our clothes and pressed onto my skin. It was smooth as saxophone, and gentle as wind. It laced itself through me eternally. It felt like another swirl of dream.

Still, as I knew that every bit of this moment was real, I wondered. I wondered if he was really seeing me, there, sitting in my room in a nightgown that was straddling the line between taste and trash with his hands in my hair. Could this cowboy see me, or that past he longed for? Was I real or a mold for a memory?

I couldn't stand it. I tore myself from a shredded paradise. Then I looked straight into his reverence through the movements I cloudily felt in this heat, this guilt and rupture.

"Am I Faye or her?"

My tongue produced that flop and he froze stiffly under the pressure of my fingers, almost the same as if I had uttered her name instead of a flexible pronoun.

"What…?"

"Which am I?"

Then time tumbled and stopped as he didn't answer and his expression halted in an emotion mixed as confusion, with only a sprinkle of love mixed in behind a sheer curtain of irises. Our words glided soft on the surface of air.

"What do you mean?"

"I want to know who appears in your eyes."

Time's clumsy walk went on as it passed in a colorless siren. Then I felt his hands pull out of my hair. I felt the exit of his warm hands against my spine. The heartbeat began to unravel the begun stitches. He stood back.

__

What have you done Faye?

What have you done Faye?

What have you done Faye?

__

Carnivorous sunshine on my eyes

Cavernous rainbow in my mouth to size

Tiger thighs not made for you to realize 

(I am woman.)

Rough and tough scramble, my brain

Too course for soft hands to grope and strain

Too frail for glowing red poker to skewer and maim

(I am woman.)

The mini-poem is mine.

This one is rather long, and a bit different. If the style seems choppy then I apologize.

In this part, I left Faye's thoughts alone mostly, because she was speaking a lot, and because the scenes usually spoke for themselves. The next part will resume what preceded this. 


	4. Part 4: Dark Side of Your Dreams

****

Reverie and That Song She Sings

Part 4

-

Dark Side of Your Dreams

"Faye…"

__

His eyes.

They looked me up and down, all through me, as if I were transparent and my skin was just a ghost to cover and keep me warm. They were scanning me for all that was abstract and untouchable, for the things unable to be tasted or felt, for everything.

__

Everything.

I could feel them reaching into me, trying to hold me from within, to approach my heart to reason with it. I couldn't let him do that, not if he was holding her instead. 

__

Damnit!

How could he? Why would he? To approach his face, broken from the placid waters into a ripple, would betray me now.

I took my eyes from his face for the third time that hour.

"Well…? Answer the question."

__

Tell me the truth.

My hands squirmed nervously in my lap like grounded fish.

__

Please let it be me. Please let it be me. 

He raised his hands, with his palms open and facing me, as if to offer me an explanation, an excuse or something else. "Can I not return something…" he trailed off and lapsed into a small sigh, letting his hands fall to his sides. He closed his eyes and smiled softly. "See ya at breakfast then," he said, turning and then opening the door. He stopped halfway out, to toss one last glance at me. Then he left as quickly as he had come. I watched his shoes disappear from sight.

It simply exploded.

My heart burst behind my ribs in the moment that the tumblers clicked into their places. I clenched my fists and could feel the red half-moons press into my palms. 

"JESUS CHRIST!! DAMN IT!"

My hand shot out, striking anything that was in the wrath of me. A book seemed to cower away before I struck it, where the pages fluttered like desperate wings before it finally lay dead on the floor. My hands turned on my sheets, and I ripped them from my bed. The mattress pulled away with half of it. I roared out curses as I flung it all upon the floor.

I turned my attention on the end of the bed, where everything of mine was kept. I tore out the contents of my shelf, launching all the books across the room. They all gave the same frantic attempt to fly before their will was broken as well as their spine. 

Then my fingers came across the one thing that made me stop.

__

The tape.

I took it in my hands, softly and unlike the others. I cradled the package in my hands. The original paper wrapping was peeling away to reveal the dark shell beneath. 

__

The shell that holds what I cannot. 

I remember how I had slunk in the midnight after I first saw what was on the mysterious pack. I had unplugged the player and the television, carried them one by one to my room. No one questioned the empty place where those things had once been. Jet had grunted, and Ed had sported a curious look, but not a person said anything to me. They understood.

This was my misery. My doubt.

__

My solitude.

I slumped down, sliding my heels out from under and across the steel floor. I stared at the thing in my hands. I was still breathing hard from my expulsion of rage upon my room. My hands were still shaking, fingertips tingling with the rush they had received from the disaster I accomplished.

This thing was old. An antique. The very same thing I was. However, I had gathered no dust, nor had I yellowed with time. It was another reminder of what I was.

My heart took another step down the sunken path it had chosen.

__

Spike.

What had just happened in this room? My very desire had become tangible with him. My fantasies had become touchable. But with my clumsy mouth I had torn it all apart. Then I frowned. Disappointment spread across my jaw and furrowed my brow. 

I stood up and started down the hallway, wanting the answer he had yet to give me.

I approached his door and gripped the handle. It must have been unrestricted to me, for it came open rather easily. Spike was hunched over, shirtless, elbows on his knees. Smoke came out of his mouth like wavering ghosts and disappeared just as quickly, hanging in the air like veils of grey before vanishing. He studied my face, as if it would prepare him for a caress or a smack from my part. I stood where I was, not entering his room, but not leaving the doorway as well. I leaned against the frame and posed my question to him.

"Why?"

He grunted, putting out his cigarette and reaching for a shirt across from him. "Why what?" he said as his fingers found the soft fabric. His voice had some of its poison leftover in its tone. It was clear that I was irritating to him.

__

But who gives a crap? I want answers.

"Why'd you come in my room?" I asked just as calmly as I had voiced the question before.

He mumbled something indiscernible into the folds of his shirt as he slipped it on.

"What?"

He pulled it over his head with a sigh.

"I thought I saw something."

My eyebrow raised unconsciously. 

"What are you talking about?"

He looked at me. His expression poured forth bittersweet sorrow to my eyes, but I couldn't understand his silent messages. The blood had boiled away between us. Nothing traceable was left to glimpse at or share. Nothing was understood anymore, and we were both jostled eggs.

I started towards him. He followed me with his eyes. I felt the brown irises fall down on me the moment my clothing rustled away the silence. It didn't matter to me, for I had my own on his face. I watched him, watching me. Then I leaned down to meet them both.

"What really happened in that room, Spike?"

He blinked. Not out of confusion, but for the sake of stalling to fix the jigsaw puzzle of words. My heart ached with every beat as this posed question was left unanswered.

"A dream, I suppose."

My fist slammed into the bookshelf behind him, shifting some contents onto his sheets, with my abrupt thrust towards his face. We were inches away now. I could smell his hair. 

My other hand held my weight from falling into his lap and causing a terrible accident.

"Just a dream?"

__

Tell me the truth, Spike. 

My aggression for the answer startled him. I scanned this man. He was moving his hand.

I saw it. 

__

Envelope.

Beside his hand.

My attention turned and I plucked the envelope from the bed. It was thick, a definite square shape worn onto the outside from the contents. The stickers were fading. 

__

Tokyo…

__

Germany…

__

Europa…

__

Ganymede…

These names called out in the bright letters along the envelope. I knew hardly any of them. The edges were torn and ragged, apparently by hands that were dumb with frantic feeling, for the clasp had yet to be undone.

He tried to take it away from me. He grabbed and grunted out of something near panic. 

But no, I would not let him have this, for a piece of the contents fell out as he made a grab for it and I curved to dodge. 

I looked down at it. The shock jumped into my chest and I felt the horror of it. I stared at this thing.

The eyes of a child stared back at me.

I bent down, slowly, reaching out and pulling the child from the floor. She smiled at me from behind a birthday cake lined with eight distinct candles in a row and designed with a monkey in a red fez. It wasn't the child that I had recognized, for I couldn't find anything within my very mind that could recall this image.

It was the eyes.

Eight aged to twenty-three.

__

He hid it from me…

I must've said it aloud.

"Yeah, I did. Listen Faye…"

I stared at the little girl. At myself.

"Faye…"

Again, a heart took the muddy path.

"It's all a dream."

The air became silent with my words. Maybe he understood what I meant with them. On the other hand, maybe they were a foreign knife, strange blade but it cuts just the same. Maybe they were hollow, and I my tongue had fumbled in the dark of my mouth and come out with nonsense. 

__

My heart hurts. 

__

Tired of playing.

"I thought you'd leave if you saw them. I thought you'd…" he began and then left the words clinging to open air like an unfinished chain. Heavy. Not warm. Erratic instead.

"You thought I would leave."

He ran his hands through his hair, catching on all the tangles and twists. 

"Yeah."

"If I was a dream, would you know if I really left?"

"Faye…"

His hands were holding my face again, trying to make me see his soul through hazy panes. Maybe they were fogged with my breath and disappointment. Spike's eyes darted to find understanding in my face. I don't know if he found such treasures from me. I'm not sure if he could.

He pulled me to his chest and kissed my hair, stroking it with his hands. I didn't lift my hands to share an embrace.

Numb this time.

Empty.

He had locked away my own secret. A secret that I could not fathom or recall. 

__

Why did it come?

"I shouldn't even be here," I mumbled into his shirt. He held me tighter to him.

__

What did you do Faye?

__

What did you do Faye?

__

What did you do Faye?

__

Sturdy shelter in which we crime

Thoughtlessness is always mine

Dine tonight to dine alone

Carved along this façade of stone

Can you hear her voice be told?

She sings above this Latin cold

Her words echo back thousand fold

Only you can breathe my sanity

For you are my judge

My jury

My exclusion

__ ****

Author Notes:

The mini-poem is mine.

I thank all of who have read and reviewed my story. Thank you for your support, without you this story would've remained in its original "one shot" form. Your reviews have given me confidence in what I do. Thank you again.

Oh, by the way, Choir Geek, I could not find your profile to read your stories. Have you changed your name since you reviewed?

The story after this installment will begin to follow Faye's passion to find her past, though events portrayed in the television series will play a small part in what is to come, with the exception of the last installments. I expect to have at least 12 total parts in this story. 

Oh, and I have English and Advanced Biology this semester, and if I don't ace both of them, I don't get this nice and wonderful scholarship that would get me into college for free. So it might take me a while to update, like it did this time. Sorry for taking so long.


	5. Part 5: Disarm

****

Reverie and That Song She Sings

Part 5

-

Disarm

The room was cold.

But my mind had abandoned my skin and ignored the chills that ran up and down my spine. My mind was ignoring everything. I had slept a short time while the room simmered down the temperature and the feelings. The timer on the player blinked on and off a glow pressed to the walls as I lay withering on the rumpled mattress that remained on the floor.

Around my feet were scattered remnants of the past. None of them matched each other. The background was always absent of the scenery. The seasons and years changed within squares and angles of my family and myself. None were dated. Maybe we all assumed that I would know all the days and years they were taken. It surely couldn't have been known that I wouldn't. The deciphering of the photographs wasn't long. The woman who liked Chinese red and smiling over roses with baby's breath threaded through. The man with silvering brown hair and stubble spotting his chin who seemed to wield a spatula over a grill like a knight. The girl in pearls and bright lipstick as she posed dramatically in shoes too big and dress too long.

I had my mother's eyes. My father's mouth.

And a sister.

She was nameless to me now. 

Had she been with me on that fateful day? Was she sitting beside me?

All questions were being asked of a void, and so they received nothing for their existence.

I didn't feel like coming out of my room. I just watched the walls shift from dark to green as I drifted from sleep to reality and back again. Once in this wallowing I was conscious of someone standing over me. They pulled a cover over my shoulders and touched my hair. I thought maybe it was a dream, until I saw the blanket on me when I awoke enough from my cocoon to see reality. Quietly I asked myself to recall who put it there, who could think of me at this moment. I didn't truly know, but a name echoed back ten-thousand times over.

__

Spike.

And with each repetition, I inwardly winced. 

He had kept someone from me. Why was he so afraid of me leaving? I was a mere illusion to him, after all. My heart could die and he would know that I was dying, but not know the wound I suffered, even with the scarlet flowing from my breast. But then again, I couldn't conceive what he held in that fuzz covered head of his. I could never see inside of him as he sees into me. 

I could find no difference in the tiles of the floor. All the marble had the same design for me. Nothing was left.

This is the moment of the awkward dolls on strings.

The air bit my flesh as I pulled the blanket from me and stood up. I changed from my nightgown to a simple shirt and shorts. Old men and little girls need not see me in such things.

I opened the door and welcomed the very fires of Hell with it.

Bebop's hum vibrated my ears gently enough for me to notice. Barefoot still, I started up the halls towards the control room. There was no special reason I put my feet in that direction. I just wanted to know how far we were from Mars.

The stairs sounded out as I made my way.

"Missed you at breakfast. Where were you?"

I smiled gently into the darkness in order to mask my mood.

"Just sleeping. No need to worry."

The innocent face of a teenage girl peered out from under the stairs. In her hands was a roughly designed gadget with a few buttons and wobbling limbs, around her bare feet were bolts and bits of wire. Her expression seemed as serious as she could.

"Edward tried to save you some, but Spike-person and Jet-person mega hungry and ate it all up," then the face brightened with a broad grin, "But Ed has secret stash. Want some Faye-Faye?"

I smiled. "Sure thing Ed," I said. 

__

Whatever Ed has to offer is better than an empty stomach and silence.

There were no lights in the part of the ship she led me to. But her hand was guiding enough with its gentle tugs in the rhythm of her cheerful hum. Then she let me go for a moment, wandering but not far. I heard rustling and a click before light glowed out from a technical lamp. My eyes adjusted in time to see Ed dart for a box. She dug through it and came up with a few candy bars in neon wrappings.

I chewed on them hastily.

__

I must've been hungrier than I thought.

Two yellow eyes leaned in close to me. I swallowed a bite of chocolate bar.

"Why is Spike-person acting funny?"

The question took me aback. 

"W-What?" I stuttered out. She must've been blurting nonsense again, for what did he need to be upset about? He was the one who did everything to me. He wasn't the one feeling judged and guilty for every emotion we ever shared, whether in my bedroom or not.

"Spike-person has not spoken in long while. Spike-person quiet during eating earlier. Ed heard talking before breakfast. Does Faye-Faye know why?"

"Um…"

The girl peered into my face with a persistent measure. She moved closer and I pulled back. Again, she moved towards my face. We exchanged movements until I was leaning inches from the floor.

__

What is this kid's problem?!

I knew she could tell I was uncomfortable, even in the dim room it was quite apparent. She grinned and then pulled away from me and into a sitting position, legs crossed and feet pressed against each other. She began rock back and forth, humming the same tune as before.

"Herman, Sherman, puddin-n-sky, kissed the onions and made them cry, the sun shines potatoes onto their eyes…" she sang out and then began to hum once more. She stopped suddenly in mid-note and mid-rock.

"Spike-person is sad. What make him said?"

I smiled at her innocent worry. 

__

She won't understand until later.

"He's sad because I said he snored."

Ed's face scrunched up. "But Spike-person doesn't snore," she said with a bit of displeasing evident in her voice.

"I know. He's sad because I lied to him."

One of her eyebrows raised up. "Why?" she said. 

_Why_?

Yes, that was the question.

Why was anything here? Why did I need to ruin it all like ancient cities on the crushing block? I felt like an assembly line of mistakes, all factory made and customer satisfaction guaranteed for the pleasure of some laughing deity to play with me in this diabolical dollhouse. 

The abrupt feelings weren't meant for her to witness. She was a little sister in-training to me, as pure as a butterfly perched atop a flower in an Earthen field. She didn't know what she did to me with simple questions and simple words.

"Ed, I have to go somewhere. Thanks for the candy."

I stood up and started away, even though I had no conception as to where I was going. But it didn't matter, for I had come to a realization.

The blood needs not to bubble over the veins and onto the floor. Spike had shown me that he was actually human, and I had thrown the confession down his throat, wallowing in my own grievance and not thinking of him. I had waited for him to push me away, but instead found another wound inside me to open and bleed. 

Jesus, I wish he had said something more.

I stood in front of that same door. The steel reflected me backwards and distorted. I kept my poise a moment.

I turned to knock and stopped. 

My knuckles were barely centimeters from soothing my soul. But what would happen now? The picket fence? The "happily ever after" opening line? What was I expecting when he opened to me again, if he did at all?

__

No.

I took a step back. My hand dropped back to my side.

__

Can't.

Slumped against the wall, I pulled my knees to my chest. I closed my eyes and let them sink with my heavy chest as it tightened up. 

__

Sorry, darlin'. _I can't fly these yellow birds any longer_.

__

I cannot fly.

The seams had broken within and all the contents falling out into the wind and dissolving into nothing before my face. I could see it, as my soul was broken. The fairy that had once been free, had swallowed love's arsenic and lay gasping on the shallow grave of my heart. The sudden thrust of memories and regrets bore down. The forgotten tears came crashing down upon my cheeks, tearing my eyes and chest apart in one motion. My whimpers were concealed inside the canvas painting, stitched into the frame but hidden. I dare not make noise on this ship. 

I can't open that door. 

He was right.

I would've left if I had seen them.

__

Can't you see that I can't fly it tonight

This flightless bird on a stringless kite

You twist me into knots and bends

I cannot see the horizon of where this ends

For only without you am I hungry

Only without you am I dry

Only without you am I silent

Only without you do I die

__ ****

Author Notes:

All poems (AKA the things at the end of the chapter in italics that tend to rhyme) from before and here on out are mine, unless noted.

If you're an avid reader of this story, you may have noticed that the dates between chapter was reduced to a mere two days, instead of an entire month. Life is driving me insane at the moment, one of the feelings on which I thrive when I write. Thank you Vertical Horizon and Smashing Pumpkins for writing such nice songs for me to listen to while I type this out.

And is no one reviewing at all anymore? Is it because I'm starting to suck at writing? Tell me. I'll improve if you tell me. Otherwise, I'll continue down this same route, with bad writing and 2 dimensional characters.


	6. Author message

UPDATE:

April 28, 2004

As of today, I am about a quarter of the way through Part 7 of Reverie and That Song She Sings. The reason for this is: I am now in college and it is hard on me. Unfortunately, I have very little spare time to be creative even when school lets out for the summer, because I will be getting a job so that I can move out of my parents' home to be with my boyfriend. Currently, I'm overly frustrated and my parents are driving me mad. 

But this update is not to rant about my personal life.

I will be adding to the next part… but slowly. It will most likely be completed by August, and I will also have a buffed up version of Part 6 that will come with the update. It won't have any differences; however, it will have much better flow and poise.

I promise to have the next part done before I begin school in the fall. 


	7. Part 6: Blue Sky Rain

****

Reverie and That Song She Sings

Part 6

-

Blue Sky Rain

Hours before, the video had streamed across my room and lit up my walls, glaring light on the slick pictures strewn across my sheets and floor. I didn't care for their order any more. The way they had been originally simply ceased to occur to me. A thousand faces stared at me from the past. I could find no depth beyond the image. They provided nothing. They were as flat as they appeared to be in the first place.

The room was dark now.

I had seen myself as I stood veiled in past along the ocean's edge, standing on rocks in a sweatshirt that fell softly over uniform skirt, but I could never remember what I had seen with my own eyes. I could follow the patterns of what the camera had captured, but that wasn't remembering. I could call up a fabrication, but that wasn't remembering either. I had nothing to link together the charges in my brain and complete a long-forgotten cycle.

Edward could help me. She remembered the place I could not. She would show it to me. He hid it away to keep me here.

__

"Faye…"

His eyes… his words_…_ curses as I tried to fight them off. I wasn't real. How long could I live inside some violet shelled utopia of a fantasy? My mind was already halfway withered with the lack of recognition in faces and places. I couldn't truly remember the moustache on my father, or the way I had always known that I had my mother's hair. Perhaps this was a worse fate than staring at a man you know you cannot love.

__

Would you let him if he did?

Nevertheless, that wasn't the point. I had to get away. I had to get out of here. It would be better than the constant reminder of a kiss during the night and misread roses.

That's why I had changed the course on the computer. Here, on this ship, I was clinging to a dying rope. Jet never understood. I was just a young thing to him, a woman, unfathomable in all ways. Ed was just a girl, a child. She wouldn't understand for a few years why I was really leaving. Spike.

__

Spike.

He would understand. He knew. A white-washed figure danced behind my eyes as I filled my bag with the few things that belonged to me. It mocked me in its steps and trance, in its fake sterility of paint. It had not been stained when I was. It had not been struck and broken when I was. It just stayed there, swaying to some hidden rhythm and song while staring at me with dead black eyes. That's why it held no wounds. It was dead. We were all dead here. I had died a long time ago, but the doll was sewn back up and stuffed again with a pulse and blood to keep those glass eyes blinking with the repetitive cry for a mother.

__

My mother… _something lost_.

I was a doll. I knew this, for why else would they try to bring me to their arms with that name, to take me up in their sweated embraces? Desire for a doll. They longed for this piece of porcelain flesh like starved hounds. What did I do when they called me? I smiled, then I took all they possessed. I robbed them of their money, and sometimes their lives. I was a laughing monster. Had I pushed Grendel from my own womb when I died the first time? Or had I been reborn as Grendel himself, and fitted with the face and breasts of a woman, given a womb to bear even more wretchedness?

I had no answers to that.

Somehow, I felt the shame in packing my bags and turning tail to run. This ship had been my home. This place I shared with my family. I couldn't throw in the thousand things that I loved here.

What was the point in staying here when all I could find was misery?

__

Damnit… _why did he do that_?

__

Why did he have to kiss me?

I shoved a shirt into the bag hard.

The hangar was dark and quiet, the perfect time for a getaway from this place, from his face. I slid away the bars that held the gate into place and then opened it. It whined out protests until I shut it again. My eyes were already arm in arm with the darkness. I saw the form of my ship along the edge of the hangar. It seemed like a chariot, but where would it take me?

I pulled on the latch. The door opened softly, with barely a whisper of movement from the mechanics that let it open.

"Well, it's certainly an early hour to go out for a stroll, isn't it?"

The voice startled me, and as the shadow that contained the rough tone in its throat came out of the place behind the stairs, I frowned.

He had no shirt, and his chest was bare. The navy-toned pants were held to him with a red tie string at his hips. There were no scars, and it caught my attention, caught my breath, my awe. His skin was light, like age-stained ivory, but even white scars should have been apparent. There was no pucker of flesh, no slices or traces of laceration.

I scowled at him. I scowled at his perfection as well as his presence.

"You're up early too, Fro-boy."

The name was childish. They always were. That's why he didn't care that they were said.

"You didn't answer my question."

My face tightened. The abrupt curve to dodge had missed its target and went for the outfield, caught by no one. I would be scrambling to make it to first base, that refuge beyond his face, his words, he as an entity and person. His flesh, what little of it was aware to my eyes, seemed to breathe my capture already, even before I ran.

"What do _you_ care what I'm doing?"

My tone fit into place with the knotting of eyebrows and a hand on my hip. I scowled at him. My entrapment would not go without a struggle.

He caught sight of my bag as it hung to my wrist and leaned against my thigh. He frowned.

"Where are you going?"

I scoffed. "Look, I'm not a kid. You're not my father. I can go anywhere I damn well please!"

"I know."

"Then why do you care!"

His face softened. He almost seemed sad, almost like a small dog after a hand struck its jaw. It was almost as if he were giving up.

"It's the pictures, isn't it?"

But my words did not. They continued on their march with heated feet and frown pressed lips.

"So what if it is! You don't care at all!"

My voice echoed back to me, and the vibrations of hurt came back to me and shook my ribs. It burned my eyes and pulled on my face until the tears came. I pushed the hands away.

But his caught my cheeks instead.

The original course of tears were broken with his hands.

"Faye…"

He said my name, and I hated it. I hated how it had feelings blended in with two syllables. I hated how it casually came back to strike something into me once more after echoing on the ceiling above us.

I pushed his hands away. I didn't need them, and I had already stained them with tears. They had clung to me like warm mud, and I had scraped them from my face. And, while I was wiping away the remains of shed feelings, I heard something. He had chuckled. I looked through my damp hands to scowl at him.

He was tossing something up in the air. I followed its form with my eyes until I recognized its shape.

"Hey! Gimmie back my key damnit!" I fumbled at my try to grab it, and his hands pulled in another direction. It was as if our hands were bound to the same tense string, bound in permanent separation in a set distance. He dodged my attempts with chuckles until the frustration burned itself carefully ragged into my cheeks. I crossed my arms in front of my chest and glared at him. The sadness pulsed behind my aggravation momentarily.

"Lunkhead."

He laughed softly at my choice of words. He put his arm around my waist and led me away from the ship's cool surface towards the opening of the doors.

A color peeked through the doors, a blazing orange. The blood of the sun stained and spread across the sky with careful fingers. Each tone of color blended carefully in clouds along the destroyed horizon that Earth so lovingly harbored. It was almost as if the chaos of clouds and this color were in perfect synchronization, and produced a gasp of awe and beauty on my lips.

I felt his arm tighten its circle on my waist and my shoulder fell into his chest. His skin was cool to mine, and smooth.

I didn't raise my own arm. I didn't want to be like some stupid high school romance that they show on television where I would just as quickly accept everything and return it just the same. I just wanted his skin to my skin. I wanted him to hold me, and that's all. If he wanted to talk, it was fine by me, but, for now, it was quiet.

His voice always broke that though, carefully with such a sandpaper voice and a hint of accent. The accent made me wonder where he had been raised. I knew he would never tell me, and I was fine with that for now, though I remembered the want for his complete history to be written out page by page.

He broke it.

"What's the bag for?"

I paused my breath for a moment before I spoke. "Depends. If I don't find what I'm looking for, then it won't be anything important. But if I find what I'm looking for then…" I stopped speaking. My words weren't needed to explain what I was doing, and silence was probably more appropriate. The connections were simple and were lacking only basic parts. Spike knew now.

"What are you looking for?"

My face crinkled with confusion. "Don't you already know?" I said.

"I want you to tell me."

His voice remained calm and serious. The tone never cracked or quivered, but I knew why he was holding onto my body so tightly. I looked at my feet, at my white Go-Go boots.

"I'm looking for…" __

What am I looking for?

__

What do I wish to find?

__

What am I looking for?

"…for my past. I want somewhere to belong."

He sighed.

"Ya know… you don't need a past. You just need something that pushes you through the present into the future."

I frowned and suddenly his arm was a weight and a bother to me. "Is that right? Don't give advice to me if you're going to be a hypocrite," I said, on the verge of a snapping tone.

He looked at me and his seriousness bounded into me like the kicking feet of rabbits. His eyes softened a fraction and I felt his hand moving to tighten around my waist. My side blended with his skin and the warmth of his body fell through the fabric to my own skin. He sighed and a smile fell to one side of his face.

"Shut up, Faye. For once, just shut up."

Then his lips caught mine for the second time.

We lingered there, in happiness, in that utopia shell I had cursed only an hour before. His arms encircled me and it was warm in the fold, like sheets fresh from the dryer. It was another taste of heaven, another sampling of what I could have if I stayed here.

__

But I can't stay here…

I slowly unfolded myself from it. He was looking through my ghost again, and this time I didn't mind his eyes.

"Will I see you again?" he asked me.

I could not find words. I could not bring the bubbles up from the wave that crashed and broke under my heart.

"I…" I stammered, and looked away, "I have to go get Ed."

I pulled myself away completely and turned. My back was to him, and I could feel the clinging spirits along my waist, trying to keep themselves on my skin as the absence of the original had suddenly become apparent. I rubbed my arm and inhaled as if to say something more… something that might make this softer and unrealistic… make it a dream again.

I heard the key fall to the floor. I froze with the sound. The metal against metal bang twice before it settled.

"Take care of yourself," he said, and I could hear his footfalls.

I had turned away.

He had said farewell, and turned away.

We had both separated ourselves, had both cleaved ourselves from the other, and then turned away.

My chest turned into a shredded hurricane of red, and I made my steps faster in order to halt the coming tears that burned behind my eyes. His arms were burned away with my blood. I wanted to severe him from me. I wanted to destroy the memory.

__

Why did you do that Faye?

Why did you do that Faye?

Why did you do that Faye?

__

Thick veins run a course through time

Sell it sickly, starved, sublime

The black stallions know all their lines

Collecting death in all their crimes

Growing deeper, groping further

Is this the reason why you curse her?

Because in the mirror reflection cut deep

Something stains this soul in me

****

Author Notes:

All poems (AKA the things at the end of the chapter in italics that tend to rhyme) from before and here on out are mine, unless noted.

Well, finally, inspiration struck after I graduated and I produced this. It's short, and it might not be the best installment, but there's more to come. I was writing this back at the end of June, and almost had it finished, but it remained a choppy mess, especially in the dialogue. I put it off and left it alone. Then, inspiration stuck to me after watching _Vanilla Sky_ and remembering a song and a feeling. I'll be updating this story more often now, and for those who have stuck with me…

**__**

THANK YOU SOOOOOO MUCH!

I appreciate all you have done for me as readers. This story will have 15, not including the ending, parts to it, which means I have 9 more installments to share with you. I wish it was much more, but I must end the story at some point. I heard a suggestion for a Spike version of this story, and I might just take it up after this is completed.

Would you, as readers, enjoy such a story?

****

Song listened to while writing and editing: REM – Sweetness Follows, Evanescence – Hello, From Autumn To Ashes – Autumn's Monologue, Enya – May It Be

NOTE: This is the second draft of this chapter. Before I updated this recent time, I went through and read all the chapters in order to get me in the mood for writing. I felt this chapter still needed touchups in weak spots, because I felt that some parts were out of character, and some were just weak in the imagery that I pictured in my head. Therefore, I did a second draft. Oh, and please excuse my very late update. I enrolled in college and began attending in late August. At the time that I normally would have picked up the story and written on it, I was overwhelmed with conflicting feelings and academic work, as well as a wonderful new romance. He encouraged me to continue. The next chapter is up. Enjoy.


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